this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2024
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James Howells. Quite a sad story. For those unaware, I'll give you the short version:
In 2013, Howells mined close to 8,000 BTC and saved his private keys (which is like a password to get access to your BTC) to his laptop's hard drive. Months later he absent-mindedly throws it in the trash. Next morning he realizes what he's done and tries going to the local garbage dump to search for it. He grew obsessed with finding the hard drive. It got to the point where his wife left him and took the kids with her. To this day he's still trying to get his local government to give him permission to dig through the city's garbage dump.
Semi-rant
His plan to retrieve his lost crypto was doomed from the start. When the garbage truck came to pick up his garbage, it had its own trash compactor inside, which would have crushed the hard drive to bits, meaning the hard drive most likely died before it even got to the landfill. And even if the HDD wasn't destroyed, the data on it would have likely been corrupted after sitting in garbage for 10+ years. And even if they managed to recover the data, if he tried to sell any of his BTC it would crash the market. He should have just cut his losses from the beginning and spent more time with his wife and kids. Now, this fool's errand to retrieve the (likely-dead) hard drive will be his legacy.It's very easy to say that when you didn't throw something out that would've been worth about half a billion dollars today. I hope he finds peace.